A Study on Speech Act Theory in Mythical Stories: Take Liao Zhai Zhi Yi for Example

In this article, the following aspectswere mainly discussed: First, a summary and analysis was made onthe development course of Chinese mystery novels and speech act use of mysterynovels in various periods from the source The Classic of Mountains and Seasand myths of remote antiquity to god-evil novels in the period of Ming and QingDynasty. Second, all conversational speech acts in the mystery novelscollection Strange Stories from A Chinese Studio were summarized, andthe speech acts in Strange Stories from A Chinese Studio werereclassified according to the unique characteristics of speech acts in mysterynovels in classical style of writing via Searle’s speech act classification. Finally, a classification analysis was made on the effects of representative,directive, questioning, expressive, commissive and declarative speech acts onthe narration of Strange Stories from A Chinese Studio. Besides, therelation between the use of different speech acts and plot development wasobserved, and examples were taken for verification.